1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a material handling container and, more particularly, to a rigid material handling container having wire mesh sides and bottom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Material handling containers are available in a wide variety of types and constructions. A popular type of material handling container is a collapsible wire mesh container comprising hingedly connected front, rear and side walls mounted on a base and constructed and arranged so that the container can be folded more or less flat for storage and shipment. Such containers have limited load-carrying capacities and lack the ruggedness and durability required for certain applications. Also, it is known to make rigid containers of various materials, such as wood, but such containers lack the desired features of low weight, ready visibility of the contents of the container and ease of access to the contents. The rigid containers are not stackable with collapsible wire mesh containers of the same base dimensions.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a rigid material handling container having improved ruggedness and durability, high load-carrying capacity, ready visibility of the contents, ease of access to the contents and which is stackable with either similar rigid material handling containers or collapsible wire mesh containers, of the same base dimensions.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a rigid material handling container having a relatively low weight but which is capable of holding heavy loads, so as to provide a lower tare to net load factor than is provided by prior rigid material handling containers.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved reversible latch structure for the gate of a material handling container so that the same latch can be used for either the left-hand corner or the right-hand corner of the gate.